Better Background Checks Necessary

Once in a lifetime affair means people wish to capture those precious moments of life in videos and photographs.

Over the years, the Council has received complaints where consumers invested thousands of dollars in hiring a ‘professional’ wedding videographer/photographer who turned out to be not only sluggish with their work but also irresponsible towards providing timely redress.

Sandhya wanted to gift her brother something which he would cherish for the rest of his life. The best way to do this was to capture every moment of the function on video and pictures of his special day. Sandhya hired the services of a well-known videographer/ photographer to capture those precious moments.

She came across this business via its appealing Facebook page with a huge fan following.

Going by the comments posted on the page and pictures shared by the owner, Sandhya was convinced that her brother’s wedding album and video would be nothing less than spectacular.

Without wasting another moment, she paid the full sum of $1350 and entered into a contract with the company.

Come the week of the wedding, two personnel from the business were sent to video shoot the event and take pictures.

The product which was given to them after more than a month of waiting was an utter disappointment. The video shot was dark, blurry and mostly without sound. The quality of work produced was a clear indication of amateurs being put to test.

Feeling cheated, Sandhya immediately raised her concerns with the owner of the business who rather than rectifying his mistake, offered only an apology.

Sandhya then lodged her complaint with the Council requesting a full refund of the payment made to the business. The Council contacted the Director of the business highlighting the matter.

Appallingly, in his response to the Council, the Director stated that they have several video and photography packages in place which consumers can choose from. Every package came with different levels of quality and style.

Further, the Council was notified that Sandhya had opted for the most ‘basic’ plan which came with ‘basic editing’ and ‘basic gear used for coverage’.

The Council was interested to understand as to how opting for a ‘basic plan’ justified video clippings being without sound, blank at certain stages and the photographs containing partial pictures of the guests.

If basic plan means inferior quality than this is against good business practice.

This is not the only case the Council has recently received against the same service provider. In another case, a videographer/photographer was hired to provide photography/videography services of a birthday party.

The parents paid $250 to capture the celebrations of their only daughter’s birthday party.

But what they got was a disc which misspelt their daughter’s name, showed the wrong location in the beginning of the video, adult song being played in the background with blank spots recurring in the overall footage.

In light of such cases, the Council calls on consumers to be vigilant when intending to hire a videographer and photographer to cover their special events.

Consumers who have been falling victims of some unscrupulous businesses, are advised to lodge their complaints with the Council on its National Consumer Helpline Toll Free Number 155.